Everybody has that relative you'd like to apologize for, and if you relate that to presidents, we've had a few. Andrew Jackson could arguably be one of those. Though he had many redeeming qualities, he was quick tempered and vehemently prejudiced against Native Americans and was responsible for ordering their relocation upon the trail of tears. Keep in mind that if you were in the army and your orders came directly from the president, disobeying these orders could be construed as treason, for which the penalty is death. Besides, lets face it, there were certain individuals who were probably more than willing to carry out these orders. Through press misinformation and blood feuds, there was not much love lost between many of the settled Americans and natives. History is often written by the winners. Imagine what would be written about the Allied forces had the Axis won WWII.

but a point did come when i realized the Earth was doomed , no matter what a handfull of good intentioned people are doing , it's just not enuf and it never has been . the power of group stupidity is too strong . evolution is working against the humans now . the society we have here is enabling the stupid. democracy doesn't work when 90% of the population is mindless zombies. and just look at religion , its no wonder we have 2 of the most unenlightened systems of thought dominating the world rite now , religions are like corporations , only the meanesst nastiest ones survive and the gobble up all their competition , just like christians have rabbits overshadowing the suposed resurection of their god while muslims go halfway around the world to worship a meteor that is older than their religion . lol humans are so fucking stupid 1! i dont recycle anymore .

When I realized that the vast majority of them believe in some form or other of Sky Wizard. Or barring that, they hold some other idiotic, bizarre belief. “Water has memory! Aliens abducted me! The earth is flat! Ann Coulter has said things that aren't bullshit! Queers gettin' married destroys god-fearin' straight folk's marriages somehow! Insane Clown Posse makes good music! World of Warcraft is the pinnacle of videogaming! The world will end in 2012 because an ancient culture's calendar stopped on that date! Cutting out a little girl's clitoris is vital otherwise she'll grow up to be a whore and then get raped by every man she ever meets! Deepak Chopra isn't just spouting nonsense and throwing in the word ‘Quantum’ to sound smart!”

The rampant idiocy and lack of rationality that pervades the human species is absolutely inexcusable. I only hope that, when we inevitably kill ourselves off, we don't completely destroy the planet. That way a less retarded species might evolve to take our place.

Oh shplane, shplane… how can you say that when there is gold like THIS in the world?

And the beautiful, faith-restoring comment thread I got into with a very interesting fellow there:

linktalz@reinsmapanna11 To answer your post, I was drawn to believe that there is more to human life than what we can see. That life has a spiritual side as expressed in divine revelation. I have faith in God.I see what God means about the error of men making a god of their own limited reason. It's also a way of men making gods of themselves. Men are creatures who need to seek their Creator before anything else.I think men who dismiss God and faith in Him as vain fools

OzoneoceanActually stuff like this does Christianity/Judaism a favour by giving it such wide acknowledgement. These guys could make a great bible film if they wanted!

linktalzMaking fun of Christianity doesn't do it any favors. It lowers Christianity's image in the eyes of most people who see it. The mob takes the easy path and follows what's presented to it. It's easy to laugh at something rather than actually analyze if the ridicule is wrong. That's why the mob will someday be swayed to kill Christians as the Book of Revelation says

OzoneoceanYou, like the book of Revaluation, are very nutty.

linktalzHey, ozoneocean, you just lost the debate. When you simply name-call without giving at least some sort of a response, that means you don't really have an answer. Thanks for conceding defeat.

OzoneoceanIt was my pleasure nutbag ^_^

linktalzAnd you'll be damned if you'll stop the name-calling.No one tells you what to do.I bet you can't wait until the elite whips up the masses to start killingChristians. You'll be helping to drag the Christians to the guillotines, swept along in the sub-human mob frenzy.

Ozoneoceanprobably

linktalzI hope Satan gives you guys name-tags so we can perhaps identify you as you drag us to the guillotine.

OzoneoceanThat would be freakin hilarious! YOU should be writing for this show ! : )

My brother asked me yesterday if I had a Bible. As it happens, I get people's Bibles when they die, so I said “Yes, I've actually a few of them so you can take your pick.”“Well, which Testament are they?”“What?”“Is it the Old or the New Testament?”“Uh, both of them…?”“Both!?”

So, anyway, it turned out that he thought the New Testament was just the Old Testament in modern language. What really got me was that he said “Both!?” like he was about to make fun of me for thinking they'd be in the same Bible.

Always, I wanna be with mew, and make believe with mewand live in harmony harmony oh nyan

ksteakIt still baffles me that hollywood can spend so much money on most of the bullshit it produces rather than helping out some nations in Africa or something.There's still good people out there though. Like with most things it's only the people with bad experiences that kick up a fuss.

1, hollywood (or the US film industry) is a business, they make a product and sell it. Capitalism, look it up.

2, There are people in hollywood who do great things for charity they wouldn't be able to do if they didn't run successful businesses (this is not just hollywood). Yes I know there is a hell of a lot wasted on greedy bastards and drugs and who knows what else but just trying to paint a bigger picture.

3, even if they did give the budget of transformers 2 to aid africa most likely it would line a few peoples pockets and maybe 10% would actually help people.

I know exactly when I lost faith in man. April 7th 1997. That's the day I saw a man killed for his shoes by a pack of would be gang-bangers. In that moment I knew we were all just a bunch of filthy animals playing at a bunch of pretense and its all a crapshoot.

Now I just try to mind me and mine, and hold myself to a set of standards designed to make sure I never cross that same line. Though honestly working in a call center will break you of any delusions you have about human nature and intelligence pretty damn quick too.

internet forums made me lose my faith in humanity… though these are easy enough to avoid, so maybe that's my fault :D

i work in food service, so i've got very little good to say about my fellow man. any optimism i manage to muster is quickly trampled upon (and yes, i'm an optimist, though a mite cynical, pessimism just doesn't fit my taste, and i'm not even good at faking it for long). it's not the customers, i don't know them, i try to give them the benefit of the doubt. sure they ask crazy things of me, make me mad, all that jazz, but i can convince myself they just don't know any better, or maybe i'm just unreasonable. it's the staff and management and the owners, who i actually know, that give me little to hope for. ‘honor-less, greedy, lazy, self-serving’ these are words that typically come to mind (though certainly not an exhaustive list of negative traits… that any person will stab another in the back given the right circumstances rather bothers me). it is hard to see the worth in the world when you're working all the time, barely surviving, and constantly being told you aren't doing enough. if they'd at least put down the whips… makes me wonder if the old, harder way of survival was more rewarding, if far less convenient - because i don't mind the work so much, it's the people i get hung up on.

to the actual question though, losing faith in humanity has been a gradual descent. perhaps it is the unrealistic nature of art that produced any ‘faith’ in the species to begin with. in reality, people just aren't nice. even the nice ones. :)

Here's a thought: maybe faith is the wrong word. If it's faith, then you believe and it's really hard to shake that down.

Maybe this thread is about expectations, and maybe those who “lose faith” are optimists who have large expectations. My experience is that I'm surprised that I can still be surprised, both good and bad.

The day 9-11 is the worst event that I'll have to live through, but it also brought about amazing acts of courage and sympathy. And true, true change to a lot of people who live here on the east coast.

As far as how we're evolving, I think it looks most like pendulum swings. But there's a much greater consciensenous (oh blast spelling) about “green” and that the planet cannot continually be strip-mined and then filled up with used pampers. Which is cool—it means we can get outside of ourselves.

I have faith in my fellow humans, it's patience that's lacking. ;) When you admit that you can be and have been as unworthy of the faith you want to have in others is when the world starts getting better. You can't change others and you can't enforce perfection in others, but you can perfect yourself.

They'll figure it out eventually but the road to self-realization is long and definitely not paved. Psychological studies have proven that 85% of people cannot accurately evaluate their own work or the work of others without well established guidelines or extensive critical thinking training. Which means most of us are incompetent and incapable of seeing it and of course everyone reading this will assume they are in the 15% who do get it. Trust me you ain't.

So most people are clueless and you just have to be patient, take them by the hand and show them the difference between an asshole and a hole in the ground.

I have faith, but then the world's religions have shown us that it is easy to have great faith in something that can never be proven and the flies in the face of all evidence. lol!

Humanity, I have faith in. It's come a long way from its beginnings and is still moving toward a future of equal access to the liberties, rights and freedoms that every human being deserves.

People, not so much. Unfortunately more people (at least in Western culture) have serious entitlement issues and cases of inflated self-worth than ever, and it's lowering the bar for expectations. Now it's possible to be praised as a model employee for simply doing your job competently. And that's on top of all the other issues that afflict people…

My general thoughts: welcome to the world. The whole thing's one big paradox and you'll have to learn to live with that. It sucks, but anyone who says that life is easy is either an idiot or just hasn't been hit with a real challenge yet.

That's odd, i was actually pondering on this topic on the bus ride home.

There are a lot of “faith removing people in the world” but there are still genuinely good people out there and i choose to believe that despite the apparent disparity between the idiots and the good guys, humanity is still something you can bank on.

I have unshakable faith in humanity's tendency towards self destructive behavior and in our ability to cause each other pain despite best intentions. I also have faith that most of us usually aren't aware of our full range of motivations or the full range of motivations of others and that most of our behavior makes sense, just not in the ways we think it should.

I, too, have unshakeable faith in humanity's eventual self-destruction following irrevocable despoilization of the planet. But cockroaches will be alright, though they're probably too “fine-tuned” to evolve sentience.

I still (try to) recycle, though. (Unfortunately the current country I reside in does not recycle.)

FIGHT current chapter: Filling In The GapsFIGHT_2 current chapter: Light Years of Gold

Nah, in my environment I was taught that everybody expects a shitload out of you and even if you try your best at something there's still going to be a magical way where you or the people around you can fuck it all up.I just like to sit back and watch the shitstorms.